Some of you may have recognized the title as the words from the middle section of The Beatles’ song A Day in the Life from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. It’s part of the story here, so please do not think that I am trying to pull one over on anybody. The Beatles wrote it. I am only mentioning it.
Anyway (No, I didn’t forget how I am supposed to start my story.), Kellie and I were driving to work one day last spring, and, during our trip from Salem to Mountain Home, we happened to see an unusually large number of buzzards gathered around various types of carrion on or near the road. I seem to remember that a rather large flock had clustered around one particularly juicy-looking carcass, and some of them did not seem to be too bothered by the traffic that was speeding by only feet or inches away from them. This odd occurrence set me to thinking about what buzzards might be thinking if buzzards had some sense of rationality. As Kellie and I pulled into the parking lot at ASUMH, I was still pondering the imaginary mental processes of buzzards, and The Beatles’ song A Day in the Life was playing on the radio. I considered, “What would a day in the life of a turkey buzzard be like?” I went to class right away, and I had to concentrate on my job for an hour and a half or so, but, as soon as I got back to my office, I typed up the skeleton that, after two or three revisions, became the following poem:
A Day in the Life of a Turkey Buzzard
Awake or awk!
Morning melting over black,
Open plumage to plump sun,
Slimy dewdrops drip down back.
Surf warm thermals,
Circle, circle, soar not fly,
Eyes on patterns, broad black lines,
Other buzzards same as I.
Smell putrid corpse,
Fragrance wafting into air,
Pounded possum, crushed by car,
Other buzzards, not much spare.
Down and again,
Loop-a-loop, tapering cone,
Thump puffy breast, feathers fluff,
Other buzzards, not alone.
Rotting carcass,
Bloody feast of sun-broiled meat,
Bite intestine, pull off piece,
Buzzards dash to ditch to eat.
Surf warm thermals,
Circle, circle, soar not fly,
Eyes above me, shadows watch,
Vicious raptors stalk the sky.
Down and again,
Limb-perch looking ‘cross the lake,
Creeping deathlike, darkness falls,
Nighttime--buzzard not awake.
In this poem, I hope that I have captured the essence of the turkey buzzard as I know it, and, perhaps, as you may come to see it from now on after reading the poem. It certainly is not scientific, but it is observational. I hope that you find the poem enjoyable no matter whether the details are close enough to factual or not.
The Romantics, English and American, made the bird a significant metaphor in many of their poems which have become famous or well-known. From Keats’ nightingale, Shelley’s skylark, Coleridge’s albatross, Poe’s raven, and Whitman’s mockingbird in Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking to the modern and postmodern Wallace Stevens’ blackbird and Anthony Hecht’s owl in The End of the Weekend, birds have been powerful symbols of imagination, freedom, guilt, terror, etc. The ideas and the images that birds portray often evoke strong emotions due to the traits given them by us, humans. Most do not really embody such characteristics. If you have ever raised chickens, pea fowl, or other birds, you know they are not really smart or imaginative—or scary unless you’re the size of a mouse.
I would like to challenge you to think about birds. Think about their essence, either as a powerful symbol of an abstract idea or emotion or as a bird that you see in your yard every day—at your bird feeder or eating your cherries and grapes. See if you can capture that birdy essence in a poem, a short poem or long. It does not matter.
I have probably written ten or fifteen poems about birds. At least one or two of those are unfinished, but, if you would like to read other poems about birds, please feel free to ask me to put them here in a blog. Or, why not challenge me to write a poem about a bird of your choice?—But it has to be an Arkansas bird that I could see on occasion and know something about. I wouldn’t want to write about ostrich or a penguin. What sayest thou?
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